
A commission for
leshana that I actually finished last month and for various reasons haven't posted until now. But here it is! Not technically part of my voretober postings, though I suppose it could count for that day I missed. The gryphon character belongs to
birdlord.
Biting Cold
It had started out like any other ordinary day.
Leshana had picked up a few groceries at the local supermarket, and since her home wasn't far and it was a nice, sunny day outside, she had decided to walk back. With a small plastic bag swinging from each hand, she had taken a shortcut through a nearby park.
The park in question was large, sprawling, and covered with so many tall trees that it almost looked like a forest. Multiple wide paths wound their way through the trees, providing relative seclusion from the any nearby buildings.
It was on one of these paths that Leshana first heard the sound. It was a flapping, like that of a bird, except several orders of magnitude louder. It kept getting closer and louder, though Leshana couldn't see what was making it. Some kind of aircraft, perhaps?
Then the large shape had blocked out the sun, gliding over the trees and landing on the path in front of her. Its landing created a gust of wind large enough that Leshana lost her balance and had to take a step backward to regain it.
Leshana's eyes went wide as she looked up -- and up, and up -- at the creature that had just stopped in front of her.
It was a gryphon.
She knew it was a gryphon because she it matched the classic description, at least in shape. It had a sleek head with a sharp beak, forelegs that ended with sharp claws, and a pair of rear legs that looked like those of a lion. Its long, tapered tail had a tuft on the end, and its enormous wings were folded up against its back. Its fur and feathers were black with the occasional blue stripe, and it had a white underbelly.
It was also large -- huge, even. It had to be at least twelve feet tall at the shoulder, and its body was broad and imposing. It looked down at her with cool, calculating eyes, as if appraising her.
Leshana swallowed hard, her entire body stiff. She forced herself not to panic. She remembered hearing somewhere that, when encountering a wild predator, one should not try to run, as that could cause the predator's instincts to kick in. Would a gryphon be the same way?
The creature leaned its head down, bringing it close to her. It opened its mouth, and its breath washed over her.
To Leshana's surprise, the gryphon's breath was ice cold. It felt like someone had opened the door to a refrigerator.
"Yes, you look like a good toy," it said.
Leshana blinked. It could speak! That implied intelligence, and that might change this whole scenario. Of course, it had also called her a "toy," which didn't bode well, but at least maybe it could be reasoned with.
Taking a deep breath, Leshana answered. "Why did you call me a 'toy'?"
"Because you look young and fairly healthy," the gryphon said. "You're probably a good runner, which means you'll be fun to try to catch."
Leshana furrowed her brow. Did this thing just want to play a game? "I, um, I really don't have time to play right now," she said, her tone cautious. "Maybe we could do this another time?"
The gryphon's movements were lightning-quick. It reared back, bringing one of its forepaws up. On the way back down, it slammed the paw into her chest, pushing her to the ground. The plastic bags both flew out of her hands, and her head smacked into the cobbled path, dazing her.
The gryphon now stood over her, one paw pressing against her chest. The muscles of its foreleg flexed, and it pushed down.
Leshana gasped as she felt the enormous gryphon's weight press on her. She struggled, her feet scrabbling against the ground, but it was like fighting against a hydrolic press. It leaned in close again, its beak just inches from her face.
"If you don't want to run, I'm sure I can think of other things to do with you," it said, opening its mouth and running its tongue along its beak.
Its breath washed over Leshana again. She gasped again, and the cold air was sucked into her lungs. It felt like she had inhaled hundreds of tiny knives.
The gryphon pressed harder, and Leshana heard a cracking noise. Her vision was starting to go dim.
"I... I..." she wheezed.
The gryphon let up a little, and Leshana was, mercifully, able to draw in a breath.
"I'll r-run," she managed.
"Good." The gryphon's tone sounded playful again. It removed its paw from her chest, taking a step back.
Leshana coughed and gasped, trying to find her breath. She managed to roll herself over and climb to her hands and knees.
"Now, I'll give you a thirty-second head start," the gryphon said. "Better get running!"
Blinking her watery eyes, Leshana forced herself to her feet. Without looking back, she bolted down the path.
How had she gotten in this situation? Had no one else noticed the giant gryphon winging over the city? She had been shopping for groceries just minutes ago! How could she possibly have gone from that to being hunted by a sadistic monster?
Just as it occurred to Leshana that she should probably have run into the trees, rather than down the path, she heard the flap of powerful wings behind her. Had it been thirty seconds already? Though the gryphon didn't exactly look like it had a stopwatch.
Before she was able to make it to the trees to look for a place to hide, she felt a heavy weight smash against her back, and she found herself pinned to the cobblestones again, this time with the gryphon's paw pressed against her back.
"Hm. Didn't get too far, did you?" The gryphon said. "I guess you won't make a good toy, after all."
For a moment, Leshana was worried that the gryphon was going to start crushing her again, but she felt the weight of its paw leave her back. Was it going to let her go? Then she felt something sharp hook into the back of her shirt, grazing her fur, and she was lifted into the air.
She tried to struggle, but the material of her shirt had bunched up tightly around her chest, and she couldn't squirm out of it. She did manage to kick the gryphon's broad chest, but it didn't even react.
"Well," came the gryphon's voice from behind her, "at least this morning won't be a total loss."
The gryphon then flicked its head up, tossing Leshana up slightly. It opened its beak wide and jerked its head down, its mouth entirely engulfing Leshana's head and shoulders.
It had happened so quickly that it took Leshana a moment to process it. The air around her head was now ice cold, and her back was pressed against something soft and moist. Her legs still kicked uselessly against open air.
Then the gryphon bit forward again, the point of its beak pressing against the fur of Leshana's belly as it pulled her chest into its mouth.
"N-no," Leshana managed. Then she screamed it. "NO!"
The gryphon tilted its head up, causing Leshana's world to turn upside down. It continued to bite forward in swift, swooping motions, using gravity to help pull her further in. Her head starting to slide into the gryphon's throat.
"No, please! Not like this!" She tried to grab hold of something, but only succeeded in cutting one of her fingers on the gryphon's sharp beak. Her arms were locked at her side, and when she tried to push out with her elbows, the elastic walls around her only snapped back into place.
The gryphon kept swallowing, snapping up her legs. Its beak closed around her toes, and then it tilted its head back further. In spite of all her struggles, Leshana found herself sliding down the gryphon's throat before landing in what could only be its stomach.
The inside of the gryphon's belly was tight, dark, and cold... so, so cold. The walls were harder than she expected, though they still had give; Leshana realized that at least some of the stomach fluids must actually be frozen against the walls. She didn't have enough room to stretch out fully -- every time she tried, the walls would give, then push back into place -- so she curled up into a ball.
Leshana had never been this cold in her life. It seemed to penetrate through her fur and into her flesh. It didn't help that the walls of the stomach were coating her in freezing liquid, and there was nowhere she could go to get away from them.
"Please!" Leshana screamed, the cold air biting her lungs. "Let me out!"
The gryphon's voice sounded somewhat muffled by the layers of flesh and feathers between them. "Why would I do that?"
Leshana blinked. She hadn't actually expected an answer. "I... I'll run again! I'll do better this time! I'll be a good toy, so you won't have to eat me!"
"About that," the gryphon said, and it actually sounded slightly embarrassed. "It was never actually not going to end up like this. I was hoping it would last a little longer beforehand, but this is always where you were going to end up."
"You mean...?"
"Yeah, you were doomed from the moment I saw you and thought you looked like a good snack. Sorry, but you're just meat now."
"I am not just meat!" Leshana yelled, hearing the desperation in her own voice.
"I think my stomach disagrees. You're inside me, so you're meat now. You lost the trial of life itself; your body will become part of the superior predator. It's only natural."
"Wait!" Leshana yelled, but then her compact prison shook and turned, forcing her to reposition herself. She thought she heard the rushing of wind, and she realized that the gryphon must have taken flight.
Leshana shivered, rubbing her hands against her arms. In spite of the gryphon's request, she needed to stay as still as possible to conserve energy. Maybe someone would notice her and get her out -- though the chances of that seemed pretty slim.
The gryphon's stomach suddenly kicked into high gear. The walls began to squeeze and knead against her, pressing painfully into her, probably to soak her with more digestive enzymes. The flurry of activity lasted for a least a minute or two before the stomach settled down again.
Leshana coughed, her own voice already sounding hoarse. At least, she mused, she would probably freeze to death before digestion set in.
The pattern continued for some time: the gryphon's stomach would be quiet for a while, and then it would kick into high gear, squeezing and tenderizing her. Then the cycle would repeat, the only variation being the occasional movement as the gryphon moved about.
All the while, the cold kept biting deeper and deeper into her, as though it was a living being trying to worm its way into her very cells. To her dismay, it didn't seem to cause her to grow numb, even as her joints started to ache and as she felt icicles forming on her nose. At one point, water splashed in on her from above, causing her to scream in shock and pain. Shouldn't she have succumbed to hypothermia by now?
Also, the stomach seemed to gradually be filling up with something. It was a thick fluid, its consistency similar to those frozen slush drinks you could buy at the movie theater. She felt it around her back and tail first, and the level had slowly risen, until she was sitting in a pool of the stuff.
The stomach had just finished one of its flurries of activity when Leshana realized that she could no longer feel her hands or feet. Had she finally started to go numb?
Though the movement was difficult, she slowly lifted her hand out of the slush, and realized why she couldn't feel it: it was no longer there. Her arm ended in a frost-bitten stump.
And then she understood what the frozen slush was. It was her.
She had been frozen down to the core, her entire body becoming brittle, like a steak left in a freezer for too long. And the periodic frenzied action of the gryphon's belly was literally breaking her apart, grinding her into a frozen slurry for easier digestion. And the process was only going to speed up as more of her was broken down.
It was too late for her. No rescue was coming. The gryphon couldn't let her go now even if it wanted to. And why would it, anyway? All of these seemed like insane torture to her, but it was probably just an ordinary day for the gryphon.
Soon she would sink into the frozen slush and become part of it.
At least then, maybe she'd stop feeling so cold.
The gryphon trotted into the secluded group of trees that it had made its current home. Its stomach had been working on the little fox all day, but she had long since stopped moving. It was time to rest and let its stomach finish working off its meal.
The gryphon felt a rumble work its way up its throat, and it opened its mouth to release a small blech. Something flew out of its mouth, landing with a tinkle on a nearby rock.
It leaned in close to look, and saw a pair of glasses, one lens broken, the other frosted over. Not finding them particularly interesting, the gryphon turned and settled in on the grass for a nap. Tomorrow it would wake up refreshed and ready to hunt again.
Maybe its next prey would be a better toy.


Biting Cold
It had started out like any other ordinary day.
Leshana had picked up a few groceries at the local supermarket, and since her home wasn't far and it was a nice, sunny day outside, she had decided to walk back. With a small plastic bag swinging from each hand, she had taken a shortcut through a nearby park.
The park in question was large, sprawling, and covered with so many tall trees that it almost looked like a forest. Multiple wide paths wound their way through the trees, providing relative seclusion from the any nearby buildings.
It was on one of these paths that Leshana first heard the sound. It was a flapping, like that of a bird, except several orders of magnitude louder. It kept getting closer and louder, though Leshana couldn't see what was making it. Some kind of aircraft, perhaps?
Then the large shape had blocked out the sun, gliding over the trees and landing on the path in front of her. Its landing created a gust of wind large enough that Leshana lost her balance and had to take a step backward to regain it.
Leshana's eyes went wide as she looked up -- and up, and up -- at the creature that had just stopped in front of her.
It was a gryphon.
She knew it was a gryphon because she it matched the classic description, at least in shape. It had a sleek head with a sharp beak, forelegs that ended with sharp claws, and a pair of rear legs that looked like those of a lion. Its long, tapered tail had a tuft on the end, and its enormous wings were folded up against its back. Its fur and feathers were black with the occasional blue stripe, and it had a white underbelly.
It was also large -- huge, even. It had to be at least twelve feet tall at the shoulder, and its body was broad and imposing. It looked down at her with cool, calculating eyes, as if appraising her.
Leshana swallowed hard, her entire body stiff. She forced herself not to panic. She remembered hearing somewhere that, when encountering a wild predator, one should not try to run, as that could cause the predator's instincts to kick in. Would a gryphon be the same way?
The creature leaned its head down, bringing it close to her. It opened its mouth, and its breath washed over her.
To Leshana's surprise, the gryphon's breath was ice cold. It felt like someone had opened the door to a refrigerator.
"Yes, you look like a good toy," it said.
Leshana blinked. It could speak! That implied intelligence, and that might change this whole scenario. Of course, it had also called her a "toy," which didn't bode well, but at least maybe it could be reasoned with.
Taking a deep breath, Leshana answered. "Why did you call me a 'toy'?"
"Because you look young and fairly healthy," the gryphon said. "You're probably a good runner, which means you'll be fun to try to catch."
Leshana furrowed her brow. Did this thing just want to play a game? "I, um, I really don't have time to play right now," she said, her tone cautious. "Maybe we could do this another time?"
The gryphon's movements were lightning-quick. It reared back, bringing one of its forepaws up. On the way back down, it slammed the paw into her chest, pushing her to the ground. The plastic bags both flew out of her hands, and her head smacked into the cobbled path, dazing her.
The gryphon now stood over her, one paw pressing against her chest. The muscles of its foreleg flexed, and it pushed down.
Leshana gasped as she felt the enormous gryphon's weight press on her. She struggled, her feet scrabbling against the ground, but it was like fighting against a hydrolic press. It leaned in close again, its beak just inches from her face.
"If you don't want to run, I'm sure I can think of other things to do with you," it said, opening its mouth and running its tongue along its beak.
Its breath washed over Leshana again. She gasped again, and the cold air was sucked into her lungs. It felt like she had inhaled hundreds of tiny knives.
The gryphon pressed harder, and Leshana heard a cracking noise. Her vision was starting to go dim.
"I... I..." she wheezed.
The gryphon let up a little, and Leshana was, mercifully, able to draw in a breath.
"I'll r-run," she managed.
"Good." The gryphon's tone sounded playful again. It removed its paw from her chest, taking a step back.
Leshana coughed and gasped, trying to find her breath. She managed to roll herself over and climb to her hands and knees.
"Now, I'll give you a thirty-second head start," the gryphon said. "Better get running!"
Blinking her watery eyes, Leshana forced herself to her feet. Without looking back, she bolted down the path.
How had she gotten in this situation? Had no one else noticed the giant gryphon winging over the city? She had been shopping for groceries just minutes ago! How could she possibly have gone from that to being hunted by a sadistic monster?
Just as it occurred to Leshana that she should probably have run into the trees, rather than down the path, she heard the flap of powerful wings behind her. Had it been thirty seconds already? Though the gryphon didn't exactly look like it had a stopwatch.
Before she was able to make it to the trees to look for a place to hide, she felt a heavy weight smash against her back, and she found herself pinned to the cobblestones again, this time with the gryphon's paw pressed against her back.
"Hm. Didn't get too far, did you?" The gryphon said. "I guess you won't make a good toy, after all."
For a moment, Leshana was worried that the gryphon was going to start crushing her again, but she felt the weight of its paw leave her back. Was it going to let her go? Then she felt something sharp hook into the back of her shirt, grazing her fur, and she was lifted into the air.
She tried to struggle, but the material of her shirt had bunched up tightly around her chest, and she couldn't squirm out of it. She did manage to kick the gryphon's broad chest, but it didn't even react.
"Well," came the gryphon's voice from behind her, "at least this morning won't be a total loss."
The gryphon then flicked its head up, tossing Leshana up slightly. It opened its beak wide and jerked its head down, its mouth entirely engulfing Leshana's head and shoulders.
It had happened so quickly that it took Leshana a moment to process it. The air around her head was now ice cold, and her back was pressed against something soft and moist. Her legs still kicked uselessly against open air.
Then the gryphon bit forward again, the point of its beak pressing against the fur of Leshana's belly as it pulled her chest into its mouth.
"N-no," Leshana managed. Then she screamed it. "NO!"
The gryphon tilted its head up, causing Leshana's world to turn upside down. It continued to bite forward in swift, swooping motions, using gravity to help pull her further in. Her head starting to slide into the gryphon's throat.
"No, please! Not like this!" She tried to grab hold of something, but only succeeded in cutting one of her fingers on the gryphon's sharp beak. Her arms were locked at her side, and when she tried to push out with her elbows, the elastic walls around her only snapped back into place.
The gryphon kept swallowing, snapping up her legs. Its beak closed around her toes, and then it tilted its head back further. In spite of all her struggles, Leshana found herself sliding down the gryphon's throat before landing in what could only be its stomach.
The inside of the gryphon's belly was tight, dark, and cold... so, so cold. The walls were harder than she expected, though they still had give; Leshana realized that at least some of the stomach fluids must actually be frozen against the walls. She didn't have enough room to stretch out fully -- every time she tried, the walls would give, then push back into place -- so she curled up into a ball.
Leshana had never been this cold in her life. It seemed to penetrate through her fur and into her flesh. It didn't help that the walls of the stomach were coating her in freezing liquid, and there was nowhere she could go to get away from them.
"Please!" Leshana screamed, the cold air biting her lungs. "Let me out!"
The gryphon's voice sounded somewhat muffled by the layers of flesh and feathers between them. "Why would I do that?"
Leshana blinked. She hadn't actually expected an answer. "I... I'll run again! I'll do better this time! I'll be a good toy, so you won't have to eat me!"
"About that," the gryphon said, and it actually sounded slightly embarrassed. "It was never actually not going to end up like this. I was hoping it would last a little longer beforehand, but this is always where you were going to end up."
"You mean...?"
"Yeah, you were doomed from the moment I saw you and thought you looked like a good snack. Sorry, but you're just meat now."
"I am not just meat!" Leshana yelled, hearing the desperation in her own voice.
"I think my stomach disagrees. You're inside me, so you're meat now. You lost the trial of life itself; your body will become part of the superior predator. It's only natural."
"Wait!" Leshana yelled, but then her compact prison shook and turned, forcing her to reposition herself. She thought she heard the rushing of wind, and she realized that the gryphon must have taken flight.
Leshana shivered, rubbing her hands against her arms. In spite of the gryphon's request, she needed to stay as still as possible to conserve energy. Maybe someone would notice her and get her out -- though the chances of that seemed pretty slim.
The gryphon's stomach suddenly kicked into high gear. The walls began to squeeze and knead against her, pressing painfully into her, probably to soak her with more digestive enzymes. The flurry of activity lasted for a least a minute or two before the stomach settled down again.
Leshana coughed, her own voice already sounding hoarse. At least, she mused, she would probably freeze to death before digestion set in.
The pattern continued for some time: the gryphon's stomach would be quiet for a while, and then it would kick into high gear, squeezing and tenderizing her. Then the cycle would repeat, the only variation being the occasional movement as the gryphon moved about.
All the while, the cold kept biting deeper and deeper into her, as though it was a living being trying to worm its way into her very cells. To her dismay, it didn't seem to cause her to grow numb, even as her joints started to ache and as she felt icicles forming on her nose. At one point, water splashed in on her from above, causing her to scream in shock and pain. Shouldn't she have succumbed to hypothermia by now?
Also, the stomach seemed to gradually be filling up with something. It was a thick fluid, its consistency similar to those frozen slush drinks you could buy at the movie theater. She felt it around her back and tail first, and the level had slowly risen, until she was sitting in a pool of the stuff.
The stomach had just finished one of its flurries of activity when Leshana realized that she could no longer feel her hands or feet. Had she finally started to go numb?
Though the movement was difficult, she slowly lifted her hand out of the slush, and realized why she couldn't feel it: it was no longer there. Her arm ended in a frost-bitten stump.
And then she understood what the frozen slush was. It was her.
She had been frozen down to the core, her entire body becoming brittle, like a steak left in a freezer for too long. And the periodic frenzied action of the gryphon's belly was literally breaking her apart, grinding her into a frozen slurry for easier digestion. And the process was only going to speed up as more of her was broken down.
It was too late for her. No rescue was coming. The gryphon couldn't let her go now even if it wanted to. And why would it, anyway? All of these seemed like insane torture to her, but it was probably just an ordinary day for the gryphon.
Soon she would sink into the frozen slush and become part of it.
At least then, maybe she'd stop feeling so cold.
The gryphon trotted into the secluded group of trees that it had made its current home. Its stomach had been working on the little fox all day, but she had long since stopped moving. It was time to rest and let its stomach finish working off its meal.
The gryphon felt a rumble work its way up its throat, and it opened its mouth to release a small blech. Something flew out of its mouth, landing with a tinkle on a nearby rock.
It leaned in close to look, and saw a pair of glasses, one lens broken, the other frosted over. Not finding them particularly interesting, the gryphon turned and settled in on the grass for a nap. Tomorrow it would wake up refreshed and ready to hunt again.
Maybe its next prey would be a better toy.
Category Artwork (Digital) / Vore
Species Gryphon
Size 1200 x 900px
File Size 170.1 kB
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